Lance Armstrong Texted with the A.P., Met with Lawyers, and Apologized to Cycling Community Before Today’s Oprah Interview

Less than a week after it was announced that Oprah Winfreyhad scored Lance Armstrong’s “first no-holds-barred interview” since he was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, the former cycling champion is set to sit down with the media empress today. In preparation for the segment, in which Armstrong is expected to speak openly about the “years of accusations and cheating” and “charges of lying” about taking performance-enhancing drugs, the A.P. reports that he went for a jog on Sunday in Austin, Texas, before meeting with advisers at his home.

How would the A.P. know about the jog? Because apparently the news outlet was trailing him in a car before he decided to make a brief comment.

Yet Armstrong looked like just another runner getting in his roadwork when he talked to the AP, wearing a red jersey and black shorts, sunglasses and a white baseball cap pulled down to his eyes. Leaning into a reporter’s car on the shoulder of a busy Austin road, he seemed unfazed by the attention and the news crews that made stops at his home. He cracked a few jokes about all the reporters vying for his attention, then added, “but now I want to finish my run,” and took off down the road.

As if the casualness of the account is not surprising enough, the A.P. also reveals that it received a text from Armstrong.

In a text to the AP on Saturday, Armstrong said: “I told her (Winfrey) to go wherever she wants and I’ll answer the questions directly, honestly and candidly. That’s all I can say.”

On Sunday night, The Washington Post reports that Armstrong “made a series of phone calls to apologize directly to key people in the cycling community with whom he had not been truthful about his part in sports doping.” On Monday, an anonymous source tells the A.P. that Armstrong “will apologize and make a limited confession” about his participation in a long-running competition scheme involving performance-enhancing drugs. Anonymous sources also tell USA Today that the interview is just the first step in Armstrong’s long-term plan to make “a comeback in public life.” The onetime hero athlete reportedly hopes that because of his history battling cancer and because he was a cycling champion “in an era when doping was the norm,” the public will be able to forgive him after a “multi-year” healing process.

If for some reason Oprah—who has long supported Armstrong and his Livestrong foundation on her show—finds herself at a loss for questions during the 90-minute interview, the host needn’t look further than the Chicago Tribune, where Sunday Times chief sports writer David Walsh, a longtime critic of the cyclist, has taken out an ad suggesting queries for Armstrong, such as “After returning from cancer, how did you justify putting banned drugs in your body?”

The interview is set to air Thursday on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

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